The Irregular at Magic High School
aka Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

(Reviewed on 10/24/2014)

The Irregular ROSSMAN

I goddamn hated this show. I just wanted to get that out in the open. I will now tell you why I wanted nothing more than to knock down and then shit upon each and every character, and then invent time travel so that I could go back to before this thing even got animated and burn the scripts and possibly cripple the entire writing staff with a tire iron because they're fucking retarded and deserve it... Not that all retarded people deserve to be crippled, just those who write horrible, painful anime series.

The Irregular at Magic High School is another story about kids learning magic in high school, but unlike Harry Potter, Negima, Maburaho, Familiar of Zero, or the 50,000 other books and anime series made around that simple idea, Irregular is all about kids learning magic made from computer programs (except when it isn't) for national defense. It's basically "What if Hogwarts supplied kids for the military industrial complex's magicial-warrior training program," which sounds promising, but the execution of which just made me scratch my head in confusion and embarrassment.

See, it's set around 80 years into our future, and at least one more World War has cut the Earth's population down to half of what it was in the early 21st century. The surviving countries struggled to get back on their feet, and then they focused all of their attention on finding even more lethal ways of killing each other. The best way that they discovered was with "magic" (by ways of sciences that are never fully explained), but at this point I was still okay with shit. "Magic that's really science? Meh, whatever," I thought. But their "magic" rules are so wishy washy that even though we're told that magic users require an electronic device that they need to program their magical attack into before each magical strike, the user soon appears to just need to swing their magical sword, or shoot their magical gun, or just punch their magical fists to inflict damage without any magical coding. I'm guessing they did this because showing high school kids typing something onto their iWatch or iPhone before each fight and before every attack would be lame to watch over and over again, despite its necessity to the plot. So fuck the plot.

Anyway, so it's 2095AD and we begin our tale with Tatsuya Shiba (the greatest living legend in the multiverse next to Ace Rimmer [Whattaguy!]) showing up for his first day of school at Japan's "First High School" with his sister, Miyuki. Miyuki isn't important to the storyline of The Irregular at Magic High School in the least, even though she's given the second most amount of screen time. She's mainly just remembered by the viewer as "the one who wants to wear her brother's trouser snake like a tampon." Oh yeah, as far as we know the two Shiba siblings are both really related, and so it isn't just another "I love you like a woman loves a man, but it's okay, because you were really adopted, big brother" type show. Nope. Full-on incest-craving here.

So the Shiba siblings show up, they get sorted into "good class" for Miyuki and "remedial class" for Tatsuya, because Tatsuya,even though he can do fucking EVERYTHING, is a little slow in actually casting big spells... Except when he's not and he's killing people left and right faster than the Roadrunner on crack. Then the Shiba siblings and their 723 new friends (have fun keeping track of every boring classmate, teacher, scientist, police detective, family member, martial arts master, military spy, bad guy, competing school student, and Chinese triad member introduced) get inducted into the school's student council, find out about the country's top 10 super-powered families' and their shadow influences on everything (though this plot point is ignored even though it was originally played up as something HUGE), then they repel a small army of non-magic users trying to steal their school secrets, then they invent new awesome magics, then they compete in the 9-schools Olympics and win everything because they're so fucking awesome, then they stop a Chinese gambling ring, then they write a thesis paper on magical nuclear fission, then they stop more spies, then they stop assassination attempts on these spies, then they give their speech on magical nuclear fission to the country, then they help the Japanese Self Defense Force stop an invasion by the Asian Federations, then they fucking save the world with lots of gratuitous violence because why the fuck not?

This show is absolutely fucking retarded, especially because it tries so hard to sound intelligent most of the time. I think it was written by a stupid 11 year-old who regularly masturbates while he writes Harry Potter and military fan fiction. The plot cannot stay focused on one thing, and therefore it loses all of its narrative drama that it was trying to build up. The storytelling behind Irregular is a goddamn giant mess of horseshit and insanity. Rules behind their super science/magic are made, then almost immediately broken for the sake of "cool visuals" (which aren't that cool anyway). Nothing in this show holds weight or makes any kind of sense.

There are dozens upon dozens of characters, yet only 2 of them are interesting... Nah, I'm just fucking with you. NONE of them are interesting. They're ALL walking, talking cliches. There's Tatsuya, the lead male character, who has no emotions, but he's a super-smartypants 16 year-old who is also a ninja, and an A++ student, and on the student council, and a soldier, and an inventor who invents magical guns and magical flight, and he's the bestest sniper in the whole wide world. He can fucking do ANYTHING (except find a girlfriend, but in that case he's just like every other anime high schooler protagonist ever). Miyuki, Tatsuya's sister, is a quiet, brother-doting (read "brother-fantasizing") beauty whom all the boys have a crush on, and she's a super-duper magic user too, even though we never see her do anything truly amazing the entire show. We're just TOLD she's the best of the best... Oh, but one time she melted a lot of ice blocks really fast, so at least she has that going for her, which is nice.

As for the other hundreds of students, teachers, scientists, family members, spies, etc., you already know them before meeting them. You've seen the petite, quiet, pretty, very intelligent, and secretly very powerful student council president who knows everything before, probably in several dozen other (better) shows. Not to mention the unassuming, pretty, young school nurse who's actually not really a nurse but a government agent, and don't forget the rival school's super savant who is the lead character's antagonist at first, but through the tested trial of competition finds a kindred and respected spirit in him. Not that cliche characters are anything new, but the writers should try to do SOMETHING original with them. But no. Nothing. Nothing at all.

The Irregular at Magic High School even has one of the dumbest names ever attached to it since Ladies Vs Butlers or Fate/Stay Night. It's like this catering place in town that's called "Creative Catering." No, no you are not creative, Creative Catering, and that then makes me even question your catering too. The "Irregular" part of the title doesn't even make sense in relation to Tatsuya's status at his "magic high school." He does conform to the established rules, customs, and morality. He does have fixed principles. He is not flawed or damaged or fails to meet a specific standard of manufacturing. And even if you look at his military career, he does belong to an organized group of the established forces. He's not irregular in any sense of the word.

One last thing: the music. The soundtrack to this show makes me laugh whenever anything happens in it (which I'll admit is rare) and it "kicks it up a notch." Whenever a fight or a battle is about to take place, the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 ghey techno music punches it into overdrive. Cupcake actually had to stop the show on a few occasions because I was holding my stomach in pain from laughing so goddamn loud and hard. And they play that music like it's supposed to be taken seriously, as if it was actually cool. No, it is not cool. NO PART of Irregular is cool.

I did not like much, if anything, about The Irregular at Magic High School. The plot was stupid, the thousands of characters we follow were boring and lame, the animation was cheap, and it appeared as if the B-studio drew all but 2 of the episodes of this entire series. This show had no redeeming qualities. Please, just watch anything other than this anime this season. I give The Irregular at Magic High School Two Thumbs Down. Burn it!

The Magical CUPCAKE

An Irregular at Magic High School... The name is terrible, but the show is watchable. In fact I rather enjoyed it.

We, the viewers, spend the entire series pondering a handful of mysteries only some of which are actually resolved for us, which is annoying. But it does seem that they are setting us up for a sequel, which is not so surprising. Except that the ending hardly leaves an opening for it, or rather they don't elude much to what we might expect in any further tales other than perhaps to settle the lingering family issues left unaddressed as well as an origin story of sorts. See, the ending is pretty huge, and it appears to take our intrepid high schoolers and place them into a much larger world than the private grounds of their learning establishment... But knowing Japan, the sequel could easily refresh the status quo and just tell us "Oh yes, we saved the country and saw a lot of bad things.... Back to AP Trigonometry tomorrow! I have a test!"

The series is a bit complicated in it's magic system and it does jump around a bit, so you will really need to pay attention to it as you watch it. It's not a "background show" to put on while you're doing something else by any means. I would say that it is interesting and the characters are pretty likeable for the most part. Although I enjoyed it, I found it frustrating at times in regards to how little information that they give the viewers on some things (like background and family histories), but then they turn around and seem to give you way too much information on what's going on at that exact moment, and who's involved, and what they want, and what must be done to stop them. My head's swimming just thinking about some of the over-explanations.

I liked it, but wanted some more out of it. I give it 3 out of 4 Happy Cats!

MEGAPLAYBOOOOY

Oh my lawds, yes! If only my mothafuckin' high school had magic to learn, that would have been the greatest 4 years of my life! Possibly extended to 6 or 8 years if allowed!

My school had tons of fly chicks, G, and if I had me some spells under my belt I just know that I'd be easily able to bag one or two either by impressin' them ho's, or by love potionin' them to get them all gooey fo' my Lil' Louie! Can you imagine, G, goin' to school and bein' all like, "Hey, Jessica, you feelin' a ticklin' in yo nether regions in my presence?" And even if they say, "Hell no, pencil dick! Piss off!" Then all I do is type in a spell into my iPad *beeb boop beeeeep*, and then ask again. Then she'd be all like "Oooooh, MegaPlayboy! You make me drizzle in my fizzles! Let's DO this!" Then sex, baby. Ooooooh yeah.

This show gave me all kinds of ideas, G. Forget Harry Potter where you gots ta be a wizard and shit to do magic! In THIS world you just need a strong enough calculator apparently! Long live technology! 4 Stars of Magic Awesomesauce!